President Donald Trump's comment equating Russia under Vladimir Putin to the United States has drawn sharp negative reactions from people in both parties.
Trump told Fox News in an interview set to air prior to the Super Bowl on Sunday that he respects Putin.
"I do respect him," Trump told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly.
When O'Reilly said, "Putin is a killer," Trump responded, "A lot of killers. We got a lot of killers. What, you think our country's so innocent?"
Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted a reference to political assassinations to help draw the distinction between the U.S. and Putin's Russia.
"When has a Democratic political activists been poisoned by the GOP, or vice versa? We are not the same as #Putin," said the senator, who is a outspoken critic of the Russian president.
Similarly, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" that while "there may be a broader context" to the point Trump was trying to make, "Let's be clear. Has the U.S. ever made any mistakes? Of course. Is the U.S. at all like Putin's regime? Not at all."
"There is no moral equivalency between the United States of America, the greatest freedom-loving nation in the history of the world and the murderous thugs that are in Putin's defense of his cronyism," Sasse said.
David French, a writer for the conservative magazine The National Review, suggested that if a Democrat had made the same comment as Trump they would have been quickly condemned by conservatives.
Bill Kristol, the founder and editor at large of another right-leaning magazine The Weekly Standard who has been a critic of Trump, speculated whether the willingness of some Republicans to "excuse Trump" might be "eroding."
On the left, George Takei, an activist and actor famous for his role in "Star Trek," tweeted: "When the press said Putin's a killer, it was adorable to see how Trump stood by his man and criticized America instead. That's true love."
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said on ABC's "This Week" that she resents Trump's statement. "I really do resent that he would say something like that," Klobuchar said. "You cannot compare any leaders in our country to what Vladimir Putin has done."
And Rep. Adam Schiff of California accused the president of "belittling" the United States.
